What a difficult hunt!!
DeadI
9/21/08 2:47pm
Well I will just start off by saying that this years Elk hunt has got to be the hardest that I have ever been on. I had such high hopes and thought that will the elk that I had been seeing the two weeks prior to the hunt that I would be taged out on sat. morning. This was not the case though, the terrain was alot steeper and rugged that I had imagined it would be. We were seeing bulls and nice ones at that right off the bat but geting in closed enough for a shot was a nother thing. Sure I could have launched wings and prayers at them but that is not me, in fact out side of 400-450 yards I am just not comfortable shooting, and these bulls were all hanging out there at about 600 yards, with no way of closing the distance on them.
Sunday it finaly came to gether and gave me a shot at an awsome looking 7x6 that we had named coat hanger. Well I think that he had a sixth sence and he new just when I was going to pull the trigger, he took a step downhill, lowering his vitals and back almost 18", and the bullet flew right over his back. It was a small opening in the trees so there was no other chance for another shot. Oh well, on to the next ridge and bull right.
Monday and Tuesday was spent in a different area, and the bulls were pletntifull, but so was the under brush, water, heat, wind (in the wrong direction) and the full moon, I just could not get a break, we have tried everything, going in silent to a bugeling bull, going in making cow calls, spot and stalk, sitting on a wallow, and bugeling, and nothing is really working well, the area we have been in holds some awsome 370 class bulls, but I have not been able to get a shot off.
My body is tired, my feet are killing me I think I have hiked dang near 50 miles in the last week. And over all it has be an awsome experience, but as of right now my tag has not been punched. I had to come home today and take a day to rest up and recoop, but I will be back out tomarrow and tuesday if needed. I am praying that something can come to gether tomarrow. I have had a great time and wouldn't trade it for anything, but it has honestly been the hardest most frustrating hunt I have ever been on. I hope others with a LE Elk tag in there pocket are haveing better luck than I have. I will let you all know what happens with my last two days of the season probably when the season is over. Till then Good luck to you. Especially those with Muzz, big bull tags that start Wed.
Sunday it finaly came to gether and gave me a shot at an awsome looking 7x6 that we had named coat hanger. Well I think that he had a sixth sence and he new just when I was going to pull the trigger, he took a step downhill, lowering his vitals and back almost 18", and the bullet flew right over his back. It was a small opening in the trees so there was no other chance for another shot. Oh well, on to the next ridge and bull right.
Monday and Tuesday was spent in a different area, and the bulls were pletntifull, but so was the under brush, water, heat, wind (in the wrong direction) and the full moon, I just could not get a break, we have tried everything, going in silent to a bugeling bull, going in making cow calls, spot and stalk, sitting on a wallow, and bugeling, and nothing is really working well, the area we have been in holds some awsome 370 class bulls, but I have not been able to get a shot off.
My body is tired, my feet are killing me I think I have hiked dang near 50 miles in the last week. And over all it has be an awsome experience, but as of right now my tag has not been punched. I had to come home today and take a day to rest up and recoop, but I will be back out tomarrow and tuesday if needed. I am praying that something can come to gether tomarrow. I have had a great time and wouldn't trade it for anything, but it has honestly been the hardest most frustrating hunt I have ever been on. I hope others with a LE Elk tag in there pocket are haveing better luck than I have. I will let you all know what happens with my last two days of the season probably when the season is over. Till then Good luck to you. Especially those with Muzz, big bull tags that start Wed.
9,642
Thanks for sharing. Hope you get the big one tomorrow.
Wyatt
Good luck and hopefully you'll be sharing some great field photos of a monster 350+ bull come later this week.
All kidding aside DEADI I can tell you worked your tail off and it hasn't panned out, but keep your head up, stay positive and most importantly continue to HAVE FUN. :thumb
Which sounds like you are, I had a Pauns rifle tag a few years back and hunted my tail off for 4 straight days after ONE buck...the stars aligned that day and I got my chance and yep you guessed it... I BLEW my chance.
I however had a blast and ended up tagging a good buck the second to last day, that's tomorrow DEADI best of LUCK!! 10sign:
If not hope he had a blast anyway.
finally this evening i get a call, sounds like DEADI had a good hunt, hunted hard and had alot of good experiences, what else can a guy ask for??
9er
you wouldn't be holding back would you??????????????
c'mon! spill the beans lol
hope he was able to get-er'-done!
if not--- hope he had fun :thumb
he is home, as today was the last day. come on deadi, tell us what happened!!! :)
9er
Well to begin were I left off. I took the day off on sunday for some rest and to regain a little bit of strength. We were up at 3:30am and on our way to what hoped would be a honey hole. We arrived to were we wanted to be to be greeted by a partly cloudy, windy, cold sky. We could hear a few bulls way off in the distance. When it got light we could see one bull, not realy big but he was quite a ways away. We worked our (my dad has been with me the whole hunt) way up the ridge to were he was at and was greeted by 3 different bulls bugeling, however once again the terrain was very steep and even thicker than it was steep. I tried everything I knew how to do to try and get one of them to come up to were I could get a look. However when I cow called they decided they did not like me and they went the other direction in a quick hurry. Needless to say pretty soon all was quite and nothing came into view.
On to the next area were we saw a very small 3pt and a very small 4pt. I was with in range (300 yards) but there was no way that I was going to work that hard to get one of them animals out when they were that small.
That was all we saw, and we were not reall impressed with the area so we decided to mover to a completly different area. We hike another 5 miles Monday morning, and then again another 3 miles monday afternoon. We figured we put on right around 65 miles during this last week (8 total days of hunting). When we got to our new destination we were greeted by a few hundred sheep. That ruined that area for the night, so we decided to take it easy for the rest of the evening and stayed close to camp.
As we were coming around this ridge there he was just standing there at about 200 yards, I thru the scope up and right there dicided that my hunt was over, my 7mm roared and the bullet smacked him on the back edge of the front shoulder, it broke throught that shoulder and completly destroyed the liver, part of a lung, and completly severed his windpipe, ( wich is were we found the main part of the bullet). He went about 20 yards and piled up.
He is not the biggest bull that I saw, but I could not be happier to have been able to harvest this great animal man did I ever work my arse off for him. I just could not get the stars alighend right for me to be able to sill the deal on one of them, but last night things finaly worked out Here is a pic for you to enjoy.
I shot him at 7:30 pm last night and we did not get back bed last night till 1pm. We got home today at 12 pm, and imeditaly started cutting up the meat (we process our own). Till 10pm, so as you could imagain I am dead tired.
The best thing about this bull is that he is going to tast alot better than "Tag Soup".
Enjoy the pic everyone.
CONGRATS DeadI on a successful hunt! I know you were really pushing it hard these last 8 days and I am tickled pink that it finally paid off.
Love the pic too! The smile says it all, my friend!